BACKWARD LAND

This has been circulating around the "internets" so thought I would post a bit of light into backward America....

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as
a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second
highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

McCain's Green Economy: Drill, Baby, Drill

Life is Palin under McCain

Two questions: What conditions create a pregnant teen? And related, Why McCain chose Palin? For her "Life," that's why.

First of all, Palin is an Evangelical wet dream. I smile with mild amusement at all the backslapping in response to her “moral” example of Pro-Life before all of America. Yes, bravo Palin, you had a baby with Downs, something that American women do every day, and have to make tough decisions about. Double bravo, you have a daughter who is going to keep her baby and get married, not because she’s in love, but a result of having an “illegitimate” child. I’ll give this to you, you’re consistent, or are you? If you’re elected, all families and those who care for our youth can look forward to moving closer to a world where teens go into the world with abstinence-only education, the moral intention to wait until marriage (or for gay youth--never to have a legitimized relationship), hormones raging and with not a clue of how to protect themselves if the former fail.

See, I disagree with Obama, that families are off limits, specifically in cases when the policies of social and economic conservatives directly contribute to abysmal quality of life conditions for America’s youth, families and communities at large, AND then take no responsibility for those conditions, but blow smoke like their doing something moral—like keeping a baby. Let me tell you something about keeping babies.

What is the penalty for irresponsible parenting? Well, in this case, it should involve a call to CPS. However, in this backward Republican dimension, that brown bonus falls heavily upon our teens. Abstinence-only teaching and Anti-abortion-only pregnancy options lead to increases in pregnancy rates, HIV infections, and marriages based on nothing that has roots in a stable home for a child to actually thrive. In my work, when children are at risk for getting pregnant, STD’s, and are being pushed into unstable or chaotic relationship—we call that neglect. It may be legal, but it is certainly not ethical, far from moral and pro-life.

As a matter of fact, there is nothing pro-life about this approach and all the policies it upholds, and far from consistent. Palin and her pro-life Republicans are pro-life until you’ve exited the va-jae-jae—then you’re on your own, baby! Once you’re out, they want to cut social welfare programs like early childhood education, public education, housing, food programs, and actually seek to drive up your prices for insurance and medical care, because the bottom line is of more value than any individual life. We all get to feel the impact of living in the aquarium called Earth with limited space and food, with population moving toward 9 Billion in the near future. How much longer before we start eating each other? But, I’m getting ahead of myself. So, our American child gets to struggle with a parent not ready to parent, lack of jobs and basic needs, which will lead this child to grow up in a dysfunctional environment and if “blessed,” turn to crime. Only then do Republicans again pay attention to this sacred child they saved—by supporting tough on crime legislation and the death penalty for America’s child! Suddenly, pro-life sounds so hollow, doesn’t it? But hey, this idiotic religious value also benefits the fiscal conservatives because with more population, there are more American babies to consume all the crap they sell, and when they can’t consume, they turn to crime, and with more crime, there’s more need for security against these American babies, and more need for privatization of OUR lands, that actually belongs to the babies they’ve saved, but to keep this elite corporate machine making record profits off of the consumers, they will need to protect themselves from those “undesirables,” those ones for which they once waved the banner of pro-life.

So, for those fiscal and social conservatives, you can clap all you want but there is nothing noble about this woman or your cause. She can’t parent her own child and she wants to push her parenting on the rest of America. Oh, and don’t think I forgot about the second question—Why Palin? First, she’s a female (token); because forcing the Republican hand or pocketbook is the only way you get these people to change anything. Second, you’re not paying attention to McCain are you? This is a win-win for McCain and the corporate owned media, both who count on a hundred more years of war and resulting profits. Watch the noble lady who kept her baby and has forced her child into a situation that is disgusting on all angles. Absolutely, don’t pay attention to the fact that McCain did everything in his power to shoot down the GI Bill, that he is pro-torture, that he voted with Bush over 90% of the time in 2007, that his campaign is run by Roves former #2 and is infested with corporate lobbyists, that he has consistently voted in favor of policies that send more of YOUR jobs to foreign countries, that he wants to privatize more public land for oil companies, which fuels more wars, wars over oil and land privatization—and your children will die in those wars for these people, not America. Palin needs to stop acting like a white man and grow a va-jae-jae—a real one. But, hey, she’s going to make sure your baby gets out of that va-jae-jae safe and sound. But remember, after that, American baby, you’re on your own.

McCain QUOTE: Athwart Popular Opinion

Senator John McCain, as quoted in todays NYT article at a Vetran's Day gathering on standing firm in his support of the Iraq War... “Even,” he said, “if I must stand athwart popular opinion.” Can we drop the "war" bit now? Let's just call it what it is! An OCCUPATION! Wouldn't that just be a grandiose exercise in stupidity, vote a guy into office who plans to go against the will of the American people. What a Maverick! Breaking away from Bush like that!

McCain, Religion, Theocratic Policy & 100 Years of War

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." Matthew 4:8, 9

Not John McCain? Endorsing someone, Pastor Rod Parsley, he calls a "spiritual guide," who says of Islam that, "America was founded... with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed." Also that Mohamud received revelations from "demon spirits." He continues that this understanding must be realized in order for America to fulfill its "divine purpose." Wh-wh-what? This man totalizes the identity of Muslim people--as a whole--as an "anti-Christ religion that intends through violence to conquer the world." Oh, I get it...like the Church did to Islam in the Crusades? Or when it stood by during the extermination of Jews during the Nazi occupation of Germany in order to maintain it's power? Or maybe how the Jews of Jesus time treated Samaritans? I'm SO confused! What was it that defines an Anti-Christ religion? Oh--whew! (wiping my brow) Now I'm clear, it's a "religion that intends through violence to conquer the world." War mongering and the spirit of anti-Christ is a behavior, not a religion and the label can both ways, including application to both of these men. People who buy this prejudicial hatred and violent posturing are ignorant. Welcome to the foreshadowing of McCains hundred years of war policy. More bowing down at the altar of the Adversary and war, as we have the last 7 years...

McCain, Graham, Burr & Second Class Soldiers

John McCain (R-NA), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Richard "Dick" Burr (R-NC) Sounds painful--I know! Don't they look afraid? McCain with that stressed out look, Graham sporting the "Gomer," and Burr looks like he's badly in need of a transfusion or a good bite on someones neck. Would you trust these men to pass legislation at 3:00AM?

Well, John Soltz, a vet, at http://www.votevets.org/ has notified me that 16,000 Americans sent letters to their Senators rejecting their "GI Bill." Why? This legislation would:

1) create a flat education benefit, which does not account for the higher cost of state college tuitions where many of our veterans live. Soltz highlights that, "This would mean veterans in states where the cost of education is higher than the benefit would have to go into debt to get an education, or uproot themselves and their families to move to a place where the benefit would cover college."

2) essentially creates second-class veterans. This bill only benefits those military persons who have served 12 years. Anyone who has served less than that cannot transfer their education benefits to their children. Soltz tranlates for us, "This says to a veteran who serves for two years and loses both of his legs in combat that his service isn't as valuable as someone who has served for longer."

3) leaves out entirely those National Guard and Reserve personnel who have served their country in active combat right along-side their active duty brothers and sisters. Soltz says, "Under the McCain bill, over 160,000 members of the Guard and Reserves who have done more than one tour in Iraq or Afghanistan would get no credit towards an education for their additional sacrifice."

Well done McCain! Do you need some help getting those knives out of the backs of our military men and women? Help is on the way!

Enter Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) and Jim Webb (D-Virginia) who have responded to this injustice, in a bi-partisan effort to introduce the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act. Vets have written hundreds of op-ed's in support of this legislation and 30,000 Americans signed a petition that was hand delivered to the Senate this week. Nearly every Veterans organization supports this bill, as well as 57 Senators from the left and right. It is well known that McCain was asked to co-sponsor this bill, but declined to do so, opting for his offensive family-unfriendly version. So, what's so great about this bill?

1) The Webb-Hagel Bill raises each vetran allottment based on the highest tution in that state, allowing vets to come to their homes and keep their families in tact, rather than having to move away to go where cheap tutions would be costly, both in moving costs and much neede social supports.

2) There is no requirement for number of years served. You only have to be a vet.

3) This bill also ensures the coverage of those National Guardsmen and Reservists who served.

Can you think of a better way to support our troops? Don’t just sport a sticker or a lapel pin, contact your Senators (http://www.visi.com/juan/congress) and tell them to support the highest benefit for our troops--S. 22!

Want to do more?

CLICK HERE TO SEND A LETTER TO THE EDITOR ON THE GI BILL

Let's show the neo-cons what it really means to "Support Our Troops!"